February 15, 2013

Press Release

The work of Wangechi Mutu, an important contemporary artist, was the inaugural exhibition of the Westphal College’s new Leonard Pearlstein Gallery.

Described as “one of the most exciting artists to be working in collage today,” by the New York Times, Mutu’s work is housed in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and numerous meaningful collections throughout the world. She regularly exhibits internationally and was awarded the 2010 Deutsche Guggenheim Artist of the Year.

Wangechi Mutu was born and raised in Kenya before moving to New York to study Anthropology at The New School. She received a BFA from Cooper Union in 1996 and an MFA from Yale in 2000.She currently lives in Brooklyn and shows at Gladstone Gallery in New York, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, and Victoria Miro Gallery in London.

Mutu’s exhibition featured several highly regarded works including Suspended Playtime and The Histology of the Different Tumors of the Uterus. Suspended Playtime explores the inventive practice of Kenyan children to make soccer balls out of bundled and bound garbage bags. Suspended they swing subtly as observers pass among them.

Read More About this Exhibit:

"Wangechi Mutu’s Afro-feminist works inaugurate Leonard Pearlstein Gallery’s great new space at Drexel" (theartblog.org)

"Artist Mutu's work opens at Drexel" (Philadelphia Tribune)

"Three Weeks Remain To See Provocative Kenyan Artist Wangechi Mutu" (Diaspora Messenger)

"Drexel Dance helps christen the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery" (Philadelphia Dance)